In terms of the rhetoric we sometimes use about crime, we should reflect on the fact that some of the people about whom we use the rhetoric are, in many ways, as much victims as are the victims of their crimes. That is not to justify or attempt to minimise anything they might do. Most of the people I knew in the Simon Community were a nuisance to society, but they were the least troublesome. The people I knew only ever murdered others in Simon as a result of rows that erupted among themselves. By the time I met these people, they were incapable of hurting anyone else because most of them were damaged physically. However, they were capable of hurting each other because they were all quite vulnerable. Some people were killed, others were charged with murder and, almost inevitably, found not guilty and, at worst, they were convicted of manslaughter.